Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in collaboration with U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, have announced top-performing solutions for the Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System (C-sUAS) Low-Cost Sensing (LCS) challenge. MatrixSpace Inc. has been selected as the overall winner and will receive the top award of USD500k. In addition, the top three performers following the overall winner will each receive award amounts of USD100k in recognition of their performance: Guardian RF, Hidden Level, Inc., and Teledyne FLIR Defense.
According to the DIU: “The selected systems secured a place among the 10 finalists who advanced to live testing during USNORTHCOM’s Falcon Peak 25.2 exercise, outperforming 115 submissions. The system demonstrated capability in detection, classification, localization, scalability, cost, and integration readiness.”
“Small UAS threats are evolving faster than traditional acquisition cycles, and meeting that challenge requires capabilities that can be deployed at speed and scale. The selected solutions show how commercial innovation can strengthen our layered defense – delivering affordable sensing that we can field widely, adapt quickly, and keep the warfighter ahead of the threat,” said David Payne, Acting Director of DIU’s Autonomy Portfolio.
The LCS challenge, launched in May 2025, was designed to complement exquisite sensor systems by identifying emerging technologies that enable broad, distributed, and resilient sensing architectures. During FP 25.2, the ten selected finalists demonstrated solutions spanning radio frequency passive detection, active radar, acoustic sensing, optical and infrared modalities, and hybrid systems. These technologies collectively showed potential cost savings of 50–80 percent in total cost of ownership, while still meeting key coverage and performance requirements for C-sUAS defence, said the organisation. During live testing, vendors were evaluated against a variety of small UAS flown both individually and in coordinated multiples, employing diverse communication protocols. Finalists were not informed which platforms or profiles they would be tested against, ensuring performance was measured under realistic, un-scripted, and operationally relevant conditions.
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Winners Announced for C-UAS Low-Cost Sensing Challenge
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